//------------------------------// // Fire in the Sky // Story: Three Hundred and Fifty // by Void Chicken //------------------------------// Apple Crisp and Sweetie Belle hopped across the stage of Earthshine Amphitheatre. Their hooves clopped against the wooden floor on every jump. Sweetie Belle looked up. Above her hung the catwalks and rigging, all made out of wood, and all with thin supports made possible by the lower gravity. Thin enough to burn quickly, Sweetie noted. The pair arrived at one of the closed doors backstage. "Wait," Apple Crisp said. "Do you hear that?" Sweetie Belle cocked her head and flicked an ear. At the edge of her hearing, the unicorn could hear a faint, steady hissing. "It sounds like..." Sweetie Belle started, then the hissing intensified, becoming clearly audible. "Is it coming from the dome?" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter; we have to get Spot Light and get out of here." "If he survives this I'm going to kill him," Apple Crisp muttered before turning and bucking the door in. Smoke billowed out of the doorway. The two fillies ducked under the cloud of soot. "Come on, we have to get to him," Apple Crisp ordered. The pair slowly walked through the smoke, holding their heads as low as they could. The gravity slowed their progress, as their hooves had too little friction on the smooth floor to walk at a normal pace. Apple Crisp's hind hoof slipped out from under her and she fell onto her rump. Sweetie Belle propped her head under Apple Crisp and pushed her back to her hooves. "Thanks," Apple Crisp said. "But we're taking too long here. We've got to find him." "It was..." Sweetie Belle peered through the smoke. "...this way." She led Apple Crisp to a door and pulled it open. On the other side was the rear hallway. Short flames covered the ceiling and ran down the supports. The hissing was louder than ever, mixing with the crackling and the popping of the fire. The last remnants of the setting sun shone brilliantly through the large windows. Every costume, prop, and spare piece of refuse in the hallway was aflame. "Spot Light!" Apple Crisp called. "Where are you?!" From down the hallway, a voice answered, "Apple Crisp? Is that you? I need help!" The fillies hurried down the hall to a fallen rafter. The flaming wooden beam blocked the path between Apple Crisp and Spot Light, who had made his way to the other side of it. "Sweetie Belle!" Apple Crisp turned to her. "Unicorn!" she barked. "Magic! Move it!" Sweetie Belle concentrated on her horn, sweating from the heat and squinting away from the flames. Her magic felt strange. Different. She grunted in frustration as the beam refused to move. Her friend was trapped, and she couldn't rescue him. --- Twilight Sparkle leapt through the streets, frantically making her way to the dome containing the theatre. In the distance, fire licked at the pressure dome. A tiny jet of what looked like steam sprayed into space where the fire hit it. As Twilight approached the tunnel leading to the dome, the jet swelled into a larger stream of escaping air. Twilight came to the hatch, which was closed. Around it stood several lunar employees and the performance troupe. Three were missing. "Sweetie Belle? Sweetie Belle, where are you?" Twilight scanned the crowd, then moved to the pony at the hatch. "You have to let me in!" The worker looked back at Twilight. "Sorry, ma'am, but there's no entry into the theatre dome until the fire is extinguished. We can't open the hatch until the air leak is repaired. It isn't safe." "Please, my daughter is in there! I have to help her!" Twilight looked into her eyes. "Ma'am, calm down. Princess Luna is personally seeing to the leak. As soon as it is safe to enter, we'll get your child out." Twilight hopped in place, eyes on the escaping air. "Oh Princess, please hurry up!" --- Sweetie Belle ignored her ears popping, concentrating on the flaming beam laying across the hallway. "Something's wrong! I can't..." Green flickers accompanied the orange flames. The beam lurched into the air, then swung directly towards the fillies. Apple Crisp and Sweetie Belle ducked under it. The magic released, and the beam crashed to the ground behind them. As the wood split apart, the flames exploded outwards, singing the ponies' tails. "We're not going out that way," Apple Crisp noted. Spot Light moved to their sides. "The other ways out are completely blocked, too. What are we going to do?" Sweetie Belle frantically looked around, then her eyes settled on the view outside. "See if you can break a window!" "I tried one," Spot Light said. "Nothing heavy enough to throw through it." Sweetie took a deep breath before coughing it out. She lowered her head, breathing in again. Her horn flared green. The strange magic fought her, but Sweetie grit her teeth, determined to survive. Sparks sputtered around her horn. She groaned from the strain, then yelled as loud as she could. A green bolt shot from her horn, smashing through the window. It impacted the dome just beyond. The glowing grid rippled from the impact as Sweetie Belle's magic bolt sailed out over the lunar landscape. In an instant, a powerful wind swept through the room and out the window, threatening to pull the foals off of their hooves and through the hole Sweetie Belle had put in the dome. --- As Twilight watched, a small green bolt popped through the dome. Ripples from the impact spread across the dome's entire surface. An immense cloud of vapor shot out from near the theatre. "Sweetie Belle! No!" Twilight frantically turned to the hatch worker. "You have to let me in! Now! There's no time!" The mare raised a hoof. "Ma'am, like I said, the air leak—" "Is going to kill my daughter!" Twilight took a step forward. "Ma'am, calm down. Everything is going to be all right." "No! It isn't!" Twilight grabbed the worker and slammed her upright against the hatch door. Twilight's horn glowed with unfocused maternal rage, pointed at the worker's throat. "I am High Magician Twilight Sparkle, and you are going to open this hatch right this instant!" "M-Madam Magician... even if I wanted to... it can't be opened against the pressure difference... and somepony would have to close the other hatch in the tunnel before we can safely open the valves." Twilight dropped the lunar worker, who landed on her side. "Why is that even allowed to happen! What happened to the moon being perfectly safe?! How can that..." She pointed at the damaged dome, venting its contents. "...be safe?" The worker just groaned. Twilight propped herself up against the inside of her dome, looking out across the landscape at the theatre. "Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle, please make it!" --- The foals screamed. The blowing air fanned the flames towards them, forcing them closer to the gaping hole in the dome. "What do we do? What do we do?!" Sweetie Belle shouted over the howling wind. "I don't know!" Apple Crisp shouted back. A dark figure moved against the stars outside. Princess Luna, lit by the fire, hovered in the vacuum just above the air leak. Her horn lit up and the hole in the dome squeezed smaller, but not entirely closed. The Princess's mouth moved as if she were shouting, but no sound reached Sweetie's ears. Luna gritted her teeth under the strain of magically holding multiple air leaks back. She waved her forelegs, motioning to the foals. "I think she wants us to jump out," Apple Crisp said. "Sounds good to me!" Sweetie Belle lept out of the window, followed by her friends. Outside, they tumbled to the ground in front of the edge of the dome. Sweetie Belle looked at Princess Luna. "Thank you, Princess!" Luna frantically motioned the fillies away. "Oh yeah!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "Let's get out of here!" --- Sweetie Belle jumped across the field in front of the theatre, her friends trailing behind her. She stumbled, then fell to the grass, gasping. Her legs felt too weak to stand on. In fact, her whole body felt as weak as it had all those years ago. "I can't..." she gasped out. "I think... my heart... it's giving out on me again." She felt Apple Crisp's head behind her rump. "If it's your heart," the earth pony said, "then it's mine, too." She took a few deep breaths. "We're almost to the hatch. We'll be all right when we get to it." With Apple Crisp's help, Sweetie Belle pushed herself to her hooves. Spot Light held out his foreleg, helping to steady her. Wheezing in the thinning air, the three pulled themselves to the airlock. "Get that..." Sweetie Belle gasped. "...hatch shut." The foals grasped whatever handles and protrusions they could find. Bracing their hooves against the threshold, they slowly swung the heavy door shut. Apple Crisp rotated the large handle to secure the hatch, sealing the airlock. Finally, the three fell to the ground, gasping for air. "Now... what?" Sweetie Belle asked, splayed out on the floor. A loud thunk answered her question. Air rushed in, a small cloud of dust blowing out of the vents surrounding the hatch leading to the rest of the colony. Sweetie Belle's ears popped again in the rising pressure. The air pressure equalized and the hatch swung open. In the next instant, Sweetie Belle was in her mother's embrace. "Sweetie Belle! Oh Sweetie Belle, I was so worried about you! I thought I was going to lose you!" Tears ran down Twilight's face. She squeezed her daughter tight, kissing her forehead. "It's all right, Mom. I'm all right. It was pretty scary, but I'm all right, now." She hugged her mother back. Nearby, Apple Crisp and Spot Light watched the fire die down in the thinning atmosphere. The dome slowly sagged as it deflated. "There go the props," she said. "Yeah." He didn't take his eyes off of what was left of the theatre. "And the costumes." "Yeah." "So much for our big break. I wonder if Earthshine will ever let us come back." She turned to Spot Light. "All right, be honest. Did you make me rescue you just to bring us together romantically?" Spot Light spun towards Apple Crisp. "What?" "Come on, I'm a director; I know how this works." She waved her hoof. "Two ponies in a life-and-death situation end up falling in love with each other. It happens every time. It's in the script and everything." "Um... I really was trapped in there." "You still did it wrong, you dope." "What do you mean?" "The handsome, dashing young stallion is supposed to rescue the mare he pines for, not the other way around." She sighed dejectedly. "We'll have to reset and take it from the top." "Um... I'd rather—" Spot Light was interrupted by a pair of lips pressing against his. He relaxed, closed his eyes, and enjoyed their mutual first kiss. After an all-too-short moment, the two separated. Spot Light shifted his weight. "So, uh... I guess I should buy you dinner or something." Apple Crisp put her hoof to her chin. "Hmmm... I guess I could live with that, if it's from you." "I could cover replacement props and costumes, too." "I suppose I don't really have a choice, there." "And a bigger practice studio? Please? The old one smells like something died under the floorboards." Apple Crisp wrapped her forelegs around his neck, and her dark blue eyes gazed lovingly into his green ones. "Don't push your luck."